


To Cause a Hundred Veils to Fall

by lonewytch



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: BDSM, F/M, Kinbaku (Japanese Rope Bondage), Rope Bondage, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-01 02:08:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonewytch/pseuds/lonewytch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> River and the Doctor sexy-times in the Tardis, with rope bondage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Cause a Hundred Veils to Fall

  


**_ Anticipation _ **

He wraps and circles the rope over his hands as he stands in their bedroom looking around. It’s a room he’d never seen until after they were married, and she started to sleep in the Tardis on some nights. Oh, he knows now it was always there, like the secret drawer at the centre of a puzzle box, waiting to be discovered - the old girl just held it safely away from him until the time was right. He likes to think of all the times he moved through the black of space unaware that this room was secreted away, its corners wrapped tight into the golden insides of his ship. There were probably times when only a wall had separated it from him.

A soft hum through his feet, the Tardis’s inner workings come up through the soles of his shoes. There’s a glow from the walls, and they cast off warmth like the vortex is trying to burst through them. The bed is large and expansive, blue sheets draped across it like a wide open sky. He quirks a smile as he thinks of the old girl having the foresight to provide a bed so huge.

The rope running through his fingers is tightly plied and almost completely smooth, but there’s also the slightest whisper of coarseness there.  It will be rougher again against the pale skin at the inside of her wrists. That’s one of his favourite places on her, a tender place he loves to map with his tongue, the familiar pulse of four hearts vibrating through it.

Tonight he’s planning capture that pulse and twist it into the coarse slipping of the rope, weave it into knots, her breath caught inside the twisting fibres. Hanging the rope from the bed frame, he lights candles, sprinkles incense and makes his way to the console room.

The coordinates of the Stormcage are easy for him. Tapping them in is a ritual he practised many times, and he’s filled with a strange blend of both calm and excitement as his fingers work over the familiar pattern. The lights in the room rise a little, grow warmer and brighter; sounds rise through the floor and vibrate out from the Time Rotor. The ship hums in harmony with him, in recognition of this well trodden track she carries him along.

*

Her dress is deep blue and flows over her body as she moves. It sweeps away from her upper chest like a tide, leaving her shoulders and sternum bare to the sky, and then falls to touch the floor with its hem. Clever waves of pleats conceal a split to her thigh. Her hair is corkscrewing wildly from the dampness in the cell, tumbling over her shoulders, but she doesn’t have the patience tonight to tame it.

His voice on the phone was rough and had an urgency to it that had nothing at all to do with the Universe ending. It’s been a few weeks since she last saw him. He’s been out making mischief across the Universe no doubt, but she knows how to make enough for both of them and she hasn’t been idle while he’s been gone. She’s shown herself around a couple of planets, haunted the odd bar, visited a tomb or two and gate-crashed a few archaeological digs - the Vortex Manipulator fizzing and crackling with the static from each new trip. Their paths almost crossed accidentally a couple of times, moments when she caught the smell of Time left in his wake, once in a bustling market, once in some remote ancient ruins. Almost-meetings too unlikely to be coincidental. The old girl has her own ideas about when she wants to see her child.

As she bends to slip on her heels a puff of air lifts the hem of her dress slightly, the first breath of the Tardis materialising in darkness of the corridor outside. By the time she unbends, the box is a solid blue outside her cell and looking more real than the dull lights of the prison.

Picking the lock of her cage and stepping out, the door gives way easily under her hand, and the amber light of the console room streams onto her.  Her heels make a sharp cracking on the hard floor inside, rebounding from walls as she moves forwards.

 

*

 

**_ Preparation _ **

He lets her take a few steps in, watches her look around. The low back of the dress exposes the line of her backbone under skin. He catalogues her vertebrae in his mind, closes his eyes for a moment and imagines all the nerves like spun silk emanating out from it, nerves leading to wrists, to ankles, nerves leading to the small and secret places inside her.

He loves moments like these, where he can watch her while she moves unguarded and unaware. Moments where she’s reading a book and brushes her hair back from her eyes, moments when she’s asleep curled up in the sheets and she stirs making small moans, her voice filled with sleep.

When he sees uncertainty starts to show in her, he steps from behind the door kicking it closed, then moves quickly forwards and behind her, running his hands over her shoulders down over her collar bone.

“Hello River,” he breathes into the curve of her ear as she leans her head back into him. He can feel her hearts vibrating through the flat of his palms over her breastbone, the movement conducted through sinew, muscle, tissue and skin into his hands. “It’s been a little while. I like this dress of yours, it’s your colours.”

 

 

“Mmmmmm,” she agrees, pressing backwards against him as he runs his hand down over her stomach, sliding over the dress as if it’s polished glass. “I thought you might like it sweetie, that’s why I’m wearing it. What have you got in store for me tonight then, Doctor?” 

The smell rising from her is like the rain which constantly beats down around Stormcage, but it’s also like soil and smoke - and like something unmistakably River Song. It catches in his throat as he buries his face in her hair smiling, listening to her teasing.

“A bit of running? A bit of shooting?” She is saying as she wriggles back seductively against him, punctuating each question with the feel of her against him, waking a tingling that spreads all over the front of his body. He clasps her belly and pushes her harder into him. “Saving the world perhaps? Oooooh!” she spins round quickly in his arms, looks up at him with playful eyes “What about a nice tomb somewhere?”

She can’t keep a straight face though, and he pushes a finger at the end of her nose, before running it down to press against her lips, quietening her. “Tease. You know full well we are staying exactly here.” He tugs her after him up the console steps, handing her a glass of wine from where it rests ready for her at the top of them. She sips at it thoughtfully. Her eyes are that bright green that he loves, her pupils dark and pushing against her shifting irises, her cheeks flushed as she smiles at him.

“Are we celebrating, sweetie?”

“Maybe _I_ am.” He puts a deliberate note of mystery into his voice just to irk her, and watches as she rolls her eyes.

“Well aren’t you the mysterious one tonight? I should at least know if you’re celebrating an anniversary, a birthday, Christmas…”  She ticks events off on her fingers as she lists them.

“Just you,” he interrupts, “just celebrating you. Us. You and me. The Doctor and River Song in the Tardis.”

“Next stop everywhere?” Her eyes are bright like the light of stars glancing off planets, and she sounds pleased.

“Anywhere” he agrees, placing his hand against the small of her back and pushing her towards the corridor.

*

He guides her towards their bedroom - as if she doesn’t know the way with her eyes closed - his hand pressed at the base of her spine, spreading warmth through her hips and into her belly. Fingers of smoke curl lazily from the bedroom door as they approach it, swirling into the corridor, backlit by a warm orange flickering light.

Inside, the Tardis has dimmed her lights to the dull glow of a banked fire, but all around the room are candles. Pillar candles jostle with candelabras on every surface, and on one smoke is rising from a censor. A thin sheen of scent is hanging in the air, the smell sweet but not cloying, undertones of honey, wine and spices.

“Kyphi” he whispers in her ear “the proper stuff from Ancient Egypt. The incense of the night time. The very best too.” His voice casts a hot breath onto her ear and it rallies the nerves down her neck, her side and to her hip with a delicious ache.

“Did you steal it from Cleopatra?” She teases as he nips at her neck, his mouth and breath hot on her skin.

“Cairo market,” he breathes onto her, and shivers run through her as he licks at the sensitive curve where her neck meets her shoulder

“So that’s why you were there - we nearly met, you know.” She can remember the smell of Time all wrapped up into the scent of the spices twisting through the market. “I think She was trying to get us together,” she gestures at the wall and there’s a soft buzz of assent.

He laughs delightedly at that and pats at the wall. “Good old Sexy.”

Next thing she knows he has turned and is pressing his lips onto hers. He kisses her with such abandon and a complete lack of restraint that she’s taken a little by surprise. He’s all urgent pressure against her, all tongue and teeth pushing into and pulling at her. His hands run over her back, her shoulder, her breasts, running tight lines all over.

She begins to return the kiss with the same ferocity, licking at his mouth and grasping at his shirt, but his hand is in her hair straight away, pulling her back. She can’t help but moan at the loss of heat and at the way her hair tugs at her scalp. He cups her chin firmly with his other hand, her face trapped against the web of skin between thumb and fingers, and when she lets her eyes drift open she finds that he’s staring at her intently. His eyes look so old, and it’s as if all of time is strung out inside them, looking at her. It sends a deep shiver through her, something in her bones answering his gaze that she can’t quite identify.

Still cupping her face he leans forward and begins to bestow feather soft kisses on her lips, bringing their lips together, then away from each other again, barely touching at first, then a little harder. The touch and then the absence of touch is infuriating, she wants more and more of it -  and she knows that he knows it by the smile that is playing at the corners of his mouth in-between kisses. She moans in frustration and finally he pulls away again and lets his hands drop from her hair and her face onto her shoulders.

“Don’t move” he says to her, and there’s a ripple like the thunder of a summer storm in his voice, a promise of lightening to come. Like a storm it brings electricity to her skin, static folding over her as all her hairs rise and the pale blue of his eyes roots her to the spot.

*

**_Dancing_ **

Her dress is beautiful, flowing over her, outlining every curve she possesses. Moving slowly around her, he admires the way her eyes follow him curiously.  The way that she holds herself effortless and poised gracefully, but utterly alert and ready to move, tell of all those years of training and of the power bunched up inside her muscles. Her curls spill onto her shoulders and her lips are reddened and swollen from his fierce kissing. All these little details he notes and marks down against his memory. Simple facts to replay and remember later, when she’s gone. Small things to fill the gaps of the wide trips round the Universe without her by his side.  

As his hand sweeps down he discovers how her dress pleats at the side, and he runs his fingers inside the line of the fabric and over her thigh. The lace top of a stocking grazes the tips of his fingers before he finds hot skin at the top of them, and then the crease of her thigh. He trails his finger across it, hearing her breathing come a little faster.

“No knickers, Doctor Song?” She moans as he runs his hand, feather light and barely touching, between her legs, stroking over the soft hair there, holding back from touching her where he knows she wants it the most. He raises his eyebrow at her, then leans forward whispering “I do love a bad girl, you know that don’t you?”

“Yes I do.” Her breasts push into his chest as he snakes his arms around her, fumbling briefly for the zip at the back of her dress, before finding it and dragging it down slowly. It makes a pleasant noise as it moves downwards and her dress ripples away from her. The dress slips and pools at her feet, and without him asking she steps deftly out of it, kicks it carelessly to one side, and then she is stood there in just her heels and her stockings. .

“Do you trust me, River” he asks – even though he already knows the answer.

“Yes” she replies, leaning forward flirtatiously towards him as she does, and whispering “Yes,” again. Suddenly the moment is an echo pushing up from his past and growing backwards from her future. He remembers standing in his tux, fresh from a wedding and looking down at her as she cryptically told him _yes_ and, leaning forwards, yesin Amy’s garden. He wonders if she was thinking of this very moment when she said that.

He pulls back from her smiling, and moves to the bed, where the length of rope hangs folded over the wrought iron frame. He pulls it into his hands then runs it through his fingers as he walks back towards where she waits.  

“Really?” She sounds surprised, but quite pleased as she looks at the rope and her voice is warm and teasing.  “That’s quite some initiative, sweetie.”

“Better than handcuffs,” he tells her.

“Cheeky.” She swats at him playfully, and he captures her wrist in his fingers as she moves it, bringing it up to his mouth, kissing at the soft skin there, tongue darting out to taste the salt and the pheromones coming from her skin.

“Mmmmm,” he hums at the taste of her on his tongue before stepping smartly behind her, tugging her arm back as he moves, the rope trailing and brushing along the floor. Her hair is magnificently wild tonight, and he nuzzles into it, smelling the rain woven through her curls. Pulling her other arm behind her, his long fingers curl round both her wrists easily, pushing and bending her elbows. Her skin, running hotter than his, marks a hot line across his palms.

He begins to wrap the rope, and it curves and twists like bandages, like bracelets around her wrists, weaving in and out and round and under. The movement is rhythmic and soothing, the feel of it slipping in his hands marks time and roots him in the here and now. In _her_ and now.

He moves fully around her body, stepping in circles and trailing the rope after him. It loops like circles of Gallifreyan script, criss-crossing over the softness of her body. He wraps round above her breasts, then below, noticing how the skin rises and swells at each side of the rope. Her arms are bent to her back, secured in elaborate knots and patterns. His mind, normally speeding at a million miles per hour is following the twisting shape, absorbed by the wrapping and twisting.

He ties off the final knot and steps back to survey her. She is breathing fast and her pupils are wide and black; her upper body wrapped in the soft brown of the rope which contrasts with the pink swell of her skin.

He moves back into the sphere of her body, into the aura of warmth she’s casting off, and draws her towards him.

 

*

 

The rope is both soft and harsh against her. Warmer than handcuffs, more intimate, more snug and somehow more _alive_. Her arms bent tight to her back leave her feeling off balance, as if a wind blowing against her would sway her like a sapling, and topple her without the stretch of her arms to stop her. 

When he moves forward and begins to kiss her with the same ferocity as before, she finds herself tilting backwards dangerously, but his hand is at her back immediately, holding her up and realigning her centre of balance. Then she’s lost inside his kiss, leaning backwards into his arm, trusting him to take the weight, and it’s like a deep sigh leaving her as she lets her weight and all of her cares fall away.

His free hand travels a slow half-orbit from one shoulder, down to the valley between her breasts, up again to the other shoulder, over and over. A semicircle trailing a flush of sensation across her, and leaving her desperate for him to touch harder, to pinch, and rub, and squeeze at her.

“Please,” she says into his mouth. “Please.”

She feels him smile and then his hand is upon one of her breasts, cupping and weighing softly. He tracks the sensitive skin in the crease underneath it slowly and patiently, and she discovers that it’s maddening that she can’t take his hand, guide it to where she needs it.

Finally, when his kiss grows slower, less hungry, his thumb traces over her nipple, sending sensation spider-webbing outwards.. He strokes over her, gently at first, then harder, and then at last, he squeezes and she moans into him. His hand begins to work back and forth between her nipples, softening her to a liquid heat inside.

She pushes her mouth against the crook of his neck, biting at his collar, trying to taste and kiss at the sensitive skin underneath. His hand slides down over her belly, and in-between her legs. He pushes a finger firmly against her clit and she lets out an involuntary moan that sounds almost like a sob dredged up from deep inside her.

His other hand slides down to her backside, clamping around it, drawing her close to him. She can feel him through his trousers pressing hard against her and she pushes her body into him, sucking at his neck. He makes no movement with his hand, no stroking, no sliding wet fingers; just a steady and inexorable pressure against her most tender place, bearing down harder and harder. She realises she’s letting out little grumbles of frustration against his neck and tries to move her pelvis, to rock against him and gain some traction, but his hand clamped on her behind stills her and just grips her tighter.

“Shhh. Shhhh.” he breathes into her ear, and kisses her again. His tongue sliding into her is a promise of things to come, a soothing kiss, made of coolness and of silk, a stroking at her mouth that soothes the desperate noises coming from her.

 

*

  


**_Ritual_ **

He pulls his finger away, still kissing her tenderly, and  lets his hand wander up, over the rope pushing against her skin, feeling the way it puckers around the tight lines. His cock is throbbing from the exquisite noises she was making, his River Song singing out moans pulled out of her by him. It’s still a wonder, the way her body responds to him, the things that he has discovered in himself from the shape and the taste of her skin, from the sound of her voice.

He pushes her back, guiding her with his hands so that she sits down onto the edge of the bed. And the way she looks up at him wide eyed in that moment makes his hearts contract, pulling towards each other. His hand goes to his bowtie, almost without him thinking and he pulls it loose, feels it unravel and slide from his neck, runs his fingers across it and wraps it around his hand.

She is smiling as she says “That was the first time you had me all tied up Doctor.”

In response, he just kisses the silk wrapped around his fist. Then bending to her, he lifts her hair tenderly, slides the bowtie round her neck, lets it hang there for a moment. “I think it looks better on you today,” he tells her as he ties it not into a bow, but into a double knot so that the ends hang freely, dangling just above the swell of her breasts.

“Mmmm. I like it,” she hums in approval.

He knows how much she loves him to talk to her, so as he shrugs down his braces and unbuttons his shirt he begins to tell her exactly what he’s going to do to her. Keeping his voice low and musical, he describes how he is going to he is going to touch her, tease her, fuck her deep with his fingers. He tells her he’s going to spread her legs, lick her deep and long, that he wants to taste her - that he always wants to taste her. How sometimes when they’re not together it’s all he can think about no matter what amazing things he sees spread across all of space, all he wants is the taste of her against his tongue.

While he says all this, while he unbuttons his trousers, and slips them to the floor with his underwear, he is studying her as if she is an open book for him to read. It feels like right now all of her is laid bare across her skin, underlined and thrown into sharp relief by the ropes - the way the blood rises to the surface where the lines cut into her, the line of her stockings, down to her killer heels.

He kneels in front of her, hands pressed to her thighs.

*

His hands are slide further and further up her thighs, an insistent pressure that parts them as they move. Her heels make a scraping noise along the floor as her legs slowly slide apart. Then his fingers are on her again, only this time they are moving, thank god, back and forth like the tide. They dip into her, then trail back heat and wetness over her clit, before dipping into her again. She’s burning, the heat of her body centred on his fingers and the way they are moving, sensation spreading and rising through her. She feels his other  hand trace the line of his bow tie around her neck then tug at the ends that dangle and tickle her skin, pressing a slight pressure onto her neck.

He works up a rhythm inside her, fingers skimming her, sliding out and over her clit then plunging back in. She hums, sounds vibrating from her mouth into his as he kisses her gain. She feels herself approaching a threshold where waves crash and fold; but then he pulls away back from her and the light fades. His fingers slide free, his lips pull away, leaving the tugging of the bow tie round her neck the only contact.

She moans in frustration, and then pouts deliberately at him. It makes him grin, his old young eyes scanning over her face, no doubt taking her in, taking in the flush of her skin, and the sheen of sweat she can feel over her forehead. His cheeks are flushed too, his eyes dark, his face beautiful before her. It’s her best known map; the picture she uses as a guide when the skies darken and the Universe gets cold around her.

He slips his arms around her back, shuffles his body in-between her legs, then lowers her backwards, gently down onto the bed, never taking his eyes from hers. His mouth is open and hot as he begins to kiss his way down her body, slowly taking time again -  his deliberate patience stretching her out until she feels like a taut wire singing against his mouth. He nibbles, sucks and scrapes his teeth over her skin, every place he contacts sending a shiver and sparks flying through her synapses.

Finally his mouth brushes at the crease of her thigh and his hands push at her legs, opening  them further and further until she is spread wide before him, and then he brings his mouth down onto her.

 

*

 

**_ Invocation_**

**__**She tastes of dust and smoke and of the sea. She tastes of deep waters and of storms, He swipes his tongue up over the slick line of her, tangy and sweet, then up and over her clit, hearing her gasp and cry out.

His hand wanders down his own body, to where his cock is waiting urgent and hot and he grips it, moving in time with her voice, and in time with his mouth.

He pushes his tongue into her folds, hormones and pheromones flooding over his tongue.  His touch-telepathy picks up on the urgent pressure growing in her, of her sense of constriction, the helplessness and the soaring sense of openness and joy. He fucks her with his tongue, pushing it as hard and as far inside her as he can  - tasting her inner core, and bringing one hand up to allow his thumb to circle her clit, even as his other hand works away on himself.

Her cries are growing louder and there’s a desperate harmony to them as they rise. He wants to make her sing, and so he circles with his thumb, firmer, faster, and feels her tighten around his tongue, feels her approaching an edge of white light, brighter than any star. Her cries echo from the walls she crashes over that edge, and bucks desperately against his face. Her muscles clench and her legs twitch as she lets out moan after moan, and he slides his tongue up to suck hard on her clit, wringing out as much sensation from her as he can.

Finally her notes die away, her breathing slows a little and her legs come to rest, soothed by the sweeping of his hands over her upper thighs.

He moves across the bed, up her body, to watch her as her eyes flicker open, pupils dilated; listening to her sighs.

 

*

“What now, River?” he is whispering to her “what now?” The wave of pleasure dies back gradually, leaving the burning sensation of him scrawling Gallifreyan script over her belly and her breasts. She can feel the word _love, love, love_ being written onto her.

__

“You know what,” she whispers back to him. She tries to move herself on the bed, struggles with her bindings, but with his fingers pressing her down and circling words that burn stars onto her, she cannot find the leverage to even sit up. The ache in her belly is still there, brought to bay a little by his clever tongue, but still needing to be filled.

“Do i?” he teases, and she feels him running his fingers over the ropes, travelling up to her neck, and along edges of the silk that is wrapped there. “Maybe I’ll just leave you here.”

“Damn you,” she says. She feels high on him, on the way he has her trapped, teased, partially sated but still longing for him inside her. He moves so fast that she can barely track his movements, and he picks her up. His legs fold so he is kneeling on the bed, and he manoeuvres her so that she is sitting astride him. Again she feels dangerously off balance, and it’s as heady and dizzying as vertigo, but his hands are at her back again, and he wraps his fingers around hers. His tongue sweeps horizontal lines over the ropes first below her breasts, and then above. She can feel him hard, slightly cool against her where her legs are spread wide, can feel her wetness seeping down over him. He thrusts a little, but not so he fills her, just so the hardness of him slides over the line of her, a touch like a promise.

“Please…” she hears herself saying for the second time that night, and listens to his low chuckle. And damn him that he knows exactly how to make her beg every time. “Please…”

He thrusts against her again and the tenderness of her core sends shivers through her, and a moaning spilling from her lips. His mouth moves to her breasts, and he sucks her nipples into his mouth, the sensation from them joining the shivers that ripple out from between her spread legs. He sucks hard, his tongue swirling, and then he is biting down, nibbling his teeth taking her to the edge of pleasure, blurring into pain. One hand at her back, the other digging nails into her bum and it is pain and pleasure all blending into one sensation.

*

**_Union_ **

__

He can’t help but bite down harder to hear her moan, her nipple hard inside his mouth. He’s filled with an urgency now, from where she is bucking and rubbing against him. The slick line of her slides up and down him, hot against his cooler skin, the juices from her soaking him. A criss-cross of ropes at her back digs into his palm, her warm fingers held inside the curl of his, and he feels a low growl slip out of him as she circles her hips particularly quickly, the head of his cock almost slipping inside her. He grasps at the base of it and guides it into her.

She moans in relief, and he feels her glide over the sensitive head and down over the length of him, until he is all wrapped up in her as much as she has been wrapped up by him. She is deliciously warm and all his nerve endings burn as he begins to thrust inside her, and it’s like stepping into liquid metal, into fire and into the burn of ice.

His touch telepathy begins to spread a shivering awareness through him, colours in front of his eyes as he senses her pleasure spread across his. It’s the colours of both of them, the blue and green of water under sky, the golden light of the vortex. It’s his cock inside her, pushing into her over and over; it’s her moaning, tensing her legs to meet him thrust for thrust. It’s her, captured, yet perfectly safe.

He opens the connection more, so that she can feel both their minds as well, he pushes the feelings into her mind just as he pushes into her, and he can feel the exact moment that she captures the thought, making the colours double in intensity.

*

She is bound, but free inside her mind, lifting and rising on a wave of blue and gold, on water and fire. She is cradled by him, and opened up by him, split to the sky as she rides him, meeting his thrusts. She is forcing him deep into her and gasping at the delicious friction inside. His eyes pierce her, and she leans forward for a kiss, changing the angle slightly for both of them, and they moan in unison. As he thrusts into her harder and faster, his hips losing their rhythm and beginning to jerk, she can hear a deep throbbing hum from the Tardis in the background, light and heat rising from the walls.

She sees his pleasure gold and tinged by blue, centred where she grinds down onto him. It rises, then flows and tips, the colours growing in intensity until she feels the moment when he releases inside her. It’s like a breath flowing across, around her and through the pores of her skin. She can see herself too, seconds later a wave that surges, deep green and blue over him, and she can hear herself crying out over and over again as she comes.

He clasps her to him tightly, and she is shaking and trembling as waves of colour slowly recede, leaving just a glow deep in her belly.

When she comes back to herself, her head is on his shoulder, and she is slumped forward onto him, her face looking down at the rumpled blue sheets below them. Her arms are stiff and tired behind her now, but the feeling is not unpleasant and her blood thrums through her fingers in time with the ache of pleasure inside her.

“I love you,” he says quietly, and she feels his hands busy at her back, starting to loosen the ropes. “I love you.” The second time he speaks in Gallifreyan, as he lifts and slips her off him, setting her down gently on the bed.  She can hear stars and planets on his tongue when he speaks it, and he says it once more as he uncoils the rope from around her and lets it drop to the floor.

He brings her arms forward, massaging and rubbing at them, at the impressions left on her skin by the rope, his fingers smoothing her out again. It feels strange to have control of her movements again, as if there’s too much space around her so she stretches her arms out above her head, to her sides, to fill it - then collapses sideways onto the bed in giggles as he tickles her.

He scoots up behind her, wrapping the curve of her body into his. Her back is cupped against his stomach, one of his hands resting possessively on her breast and over her heart, while she feels the other lose itself inside her tangle of hair. She brings her breathing slowly into sync with his, matches the rise and fall of his ribs, feels his warmth filling her with every in-breath as they lie there.  

The walls are dancing with shadows from the candles that still burn, and there is a self satisfied thrumming coming from them and from the floor. She feels his chest move against her and the vibration of a chuckle through her back.

“I think she almost enjoys it almost as much as we do,” he tells her.

“I _know_ she does sweetie.” She smiles and then lets out a satisfied sigh. The air is still sweet with the smell of spices. Two hearts thud in time with hers.

She feels herself becoming drowsy and her mind starts to drift and wander as sleep approaches. The humming from the walls and floor bleeds out a like golden line which casts itself over and into her, passing through her heartbeats and then back into his, wrapping itself into both of them.

It anchors all three of them together as they move through the dark.

 

 

 


End file.
